In a message dated 1/21/00 11:48:43 AM, jerry_olson@und.nodak.edu writes: >Please explain how it would be possible to get a blacker black than the >ink is capable of delivering! 100% black ink, plus some balanced percent of CM&Y (whatever the paper will hold) may be blacker on some papers (especially uncoated watercolor papers) than straight black ink. I have a set of profile targets on watercolor paper in front of me, and the 100% K patch is visibly paler than some of the high ink patches in the 300% total ink range. These patches look black, not tinted, and are a darker more satisfying black than the 100% K only black... and using a CMYK RIP the (non-text) blacks will actually print this way, instead of 100% K only. When profiling such targets, the spectrophotometer reads the increased ink amounts, and uses the point where the they don't get any darker with added ink as the cutoff. Human intervention is then needed to set maximum ink limits, since the spectro is looking for the darkest decernable color, not whether the inks bleed, so without a manually entered ink limit such a profile can produce a print that bleeds, if the RIP also does not enforce ink limits (PowerRIP does, PressReady does not). Needless to say scanner based profiling packages would have trouble with this process since scanners don't read high density (very dark) patches well. But scanner packages are typically used for RGB profiles (where none of this enters the picture, due to fixed ink limits and built in conversion settings), and tend to have fixed ink and black settings themselves... though they are beginning to offer basic features in this area (EZ 1.5, MatchLock). C. David Tobie Design Cooperative CDTobie@designcoop.com - Please turn off HTML mail features. Keep quoted material short. Use accurate subject lines. http://www.leben.com/lists for instructions.